


whatever awaits

by CopperCaravan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fenera Mahariel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:14:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7709374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For zevwarden week, day seven: “All I need to know is if there might be some future for us, some possibility of… I do not know what.”  After the Landsmeet, Mahariel and Zevran discuss the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	whatever awaits

He finds her in the courtyard, sitting in the grass.

It is dark, and though the grounds are well-lit, it makes him a bit anxious that she is alone. This is the city where her enemies made plans, where he swore to kill her, where Taliesen caught up to them and offered to finish the job. She saw elves sold into slavery, was held prisoner herself, was mocked for the audacity of having pointed ears. Denerim has not been kind to her—to any of them—and he would not have her bear the weight of this place alone, especially not when she should be celebrating, when the Crown has spent the evening toasting in her honor.

“You are not in the mood to celebrate, my dear?”

She isn’t surprised by his voice; he’d have been a bit disappointed in her if she had not heard him approach. “Not really,” she says, threading her fingers through the grass.

He drops into place beside her and waits. She will speak when she is ready. Her grasp of common is quite impressive, all things considered, but sometimes she is still hesitant with her thoughts. After a few minutes, though: “I just wanted to be outside for a while, to be somewhere... familiar. But this place—” She gestures to the gardens, the shapely topiaries and carefully selected flowers and precisely trimmed grasses. “It’s not _real_. It’s... it’s not familiar, anyway. Doesn’t make me feel better.”

That is a sentiment he understands quite well. The question is what weighs so heavily on her in the first place. He lies back in the grass, dew dampening the back of his shirt, and when he takes her hand, she follows, curling up against his side.

If the Maker cares for him at all, a servant will pass by. The Warden and the Crow, christening the gardens while the Queen is at dinner; that is a scandal worth starting and he knows Mahariel would find the humour in it too.

“I’m probably going to die,” she says into his chest.

He pulls her closer. “Don’t you dare.”

Her silence is not comforting.

“You have done enough, amor. Secured the crowns of two nations, saved the lives of so many. Enough—”

“That’s—that’s part of the problem, Zevran. I’m shaping so many futures and _I_ don’t have one!”

He puts a hand under her chin, tries to make her look at him but she won’t. Instead, she wraps her arms around his waist and he surrenders, sinking his fingers into her hair. _The Future._ A future. Any future.

Death has always been a possibility—more accurately, a probability. And though he’d grown to _hope_ for more, he’d been, for the most part, resigned to the inevitable. One cannot run forever, certainly not from an enemy like the Crows. But after Taliesen...

She has fought with such ferocity until now. He will not allow her to forfeit her life, to cast herself away so easily, especially not _now_ —now that the end is so close, now that there might be a future to hope for.

“The archdemon,” he scoffs. “It is hardly more than a particularly ill-mannered lizard. Now, Rinna, woken before sunrise, _she_ was a force to be reckoned with. Not that _you_ are much nicer in the mornings, mi amor.”

Mahariel laughs a little. It isn’t much, no, but it is genuine and he will accept that.

“Compared to that, well...” He _tsks_ , chiding her for all those grumpy mornings. Then, softer, “I would not be parted from you so easily as this. Whatever future awaits you, I will be at your side, if you will have me.”

“Always,” she says. If nothing else, there is this moment and its small bit of certainty. He is hers; she is his. Whatever—wherever—they end up, they will not be alone. She presses a kiss into the collar of his shirt. “Do you want to go back to the party? I’m sure Alistair’s happily drunk by now.”

“No. Let’s stay here a while longer.”


End file.
